The 2007 dance-pop song "
Do It" performed by Canadian singer-songwriter
Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado (; ; born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Furtado has sold over 40 million records worldwide making her one of the most successful Canadian artists.
She first gained fame with her trip hop-inspired deb ...
features elements plagiarized from "Acidjazzed Evening",
[Cuepoint: Was Timbaland's Skillful Sampling a Cultural Crime?](_blank)
/ref> a chiptune-style track composed by the Finnish demoscene artist Janne Suni. Timbaland
Timothy Zachery Mosley (born March 10, 1972), known professionally as Timbaland, is an American record producer, rapper, singer, songwriter, and record executive. He has received widespread acclaim for his innovative production work and distinc ...
, "Do Its producer, admitted to sampling Suni's work, but did not believe his usage constituted "stealing", calling the allegations "ridiculous". Although users had noted the similarities between the two tracks on Finnish demoscene forums in July 2006, the Timbaland plagiarism controversy attracted mainstream attention in January 2007, when Internet users posted videos to YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
alleging Timbaland had plagiarized Suni's work. Soon afterwards, the controversy attracted the attention of the Finnish news portal eDome, and the MTV and ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' websites, who all published articles detailing the events of the controversy.
"Do It" was released as the fifth North American single from ''Loose
Loose may refer to:
Places
* Loose, Germany
* Loose, Kent, a parish and village in southeast England
People
* Loose (surname)
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums
* ''Loose'' (B'z album), a 1995 album by B'z
* ''Loose'' (Crazy Horse album ...
'' on July 24, 2007.
Background
The original track, titled "Acidjazzed Evening", is a chiptune-style, 4-channel Amiga module
Module, modular and modularity may refer to the concept of modularity. They may also refer to:
Computing and engineering
* Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components
* Mo ...
composed by Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
demoscene
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...
r Janne Suni (a.k.a. Tempest). The song won first place in the Oldskool Music competition at Assembly 2000, a demoparty held in Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
, Finland, in 2000. According to Scene.org, the song was uploaded to their servers the same year, long before the release of the song by Furtado. The song was later remixed (with Suni's permission) by Norwegian Glenn Rune Gallefoss (a.k.a. GRG) for the Commodore 64 in SID format—this is the version that was later used for "Do It". It was first published in a disk magazine
A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence ...
in Australia in August 2002 and was added to the High Voltage SID Collection on December 21, 2002.
A video that claims to show proof of the plagiarism was posted to YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
on January 12, 2007. Another video was posted to YouTube on January 14, 2007, claiming Timbaland also stole the tune a year earlier for the ringtone ''Block Party'', one of several that were sold in the United States in 2005.
Authors' comments
Janne Suni
Janne Suni posted the following comment regarding the copyright status of "Acidjazzed Evening" on January 15, 2007:
On February 16, 2007, he added the following note:
On September 9, 2007, his webpage was updated with the following information:
Glenn Gallefoss
The C64 news portal C64.sk published the following comment from Glenn R. Gallefoss on January 15, 2007:
On February 3, Gallefoss published the following comment on his personal web page:
Universal / Nelly Furtado
Hannu Sormunen, a Finnish representative of Universal, which represents Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado (; ; born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Furtado has sold over 40 million records worldwide making her one of the most successful Canadian artists.
She first gained fame with her trip hop-inspired deb ...
in Finland, commented the controversy as follows in the January 15, 2007, issue of '' Iltalehti'':
The first legal action against Universal Finland was officially filed with Helsinki District Court in mid-August 2007, on behalf of Glenn R. Gallefoss.
Timbaland
On February 2, 2007, Timbaland responded to the plagiarism accusations in an interview on the radio show ''Elliot in the Morning
''Elliot in the Morning'' is a syndicated morning radio talk show hosted by DJ Elliot Segal and airing weekdays from "5:48 until 10 something." It is based at WWDC-FM Washington, D.C. and is heard on an affiliated station in Richmond. The for ...
''. In this interview, Timbaland admitted to what he called "sampling", but he also claimed that sampling is "not stealing", because "everybody samples from everybody every day". Timbaland also said that the sample is "from a video game" and mentioned the Commodore 64. He also said that he has no time for research and that it is sometimes impossible to "know what's public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
and what's not". Timbaland also called the issue "ridiculous" but mentioned that he is "in legal discussions" and therefore was not able to say much about it. He also called Janne Suni an "idiot" and a "freakin' jerk" on the show.
On February 9, 2007, Timbaland commented on the issue in an MTV interview:
Third-party analysis
A device in Timbaland's studio, as seen in video clips from the MTV show ''Timbaland's Diary'', has been identified as an Elektron SidStation. This device is a MIDI-controlled synthesizer based on the SID chip of the Commodore 64, and it is capable of playing back .sid files the way they would have sounded on the original hardware. It has been speculated that Timbaland downloaded Gallefoss' version of the song from the High Voltage SID Collection and used the SidStation for running it to the studio system.
Chris Abbott, maintainer of the websit
C64Audio.com
posted an in-depth analysis on the topic and summarizes it in his online article. Abbott has commercially released Commodore 64 music, most notably the "Back in Time" CD series. Abbott writes:
Abbott also notes that although the evidence seems to be conclusive, the eventual outcome is not.
Court proceedings
In August 2007, an action for infringement was filed in the District Court of Helsinki against Universal Music, Ltd alleging Nelly Furtado's song "Do It" infringed "Acidjazzed Evening". In January 2009, after a trial that included multiple expert and technical witnesses, a three judge panel unanimously dismissed the plaintiff's case.
On December 17, 2008, Abbott also testified as a witness of prosecution in the Helsinki court in Gallefoss' case against Universal Music Finland. The Finnish court reportedly threw out the case after ruling in only one aspects of the three claims (sampling, performance rights, producer rights), and the case remained in appellate court
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...
, as of January 2010.
On June 12, 2009, Mikko Välimäki, who is one of the legal counsels of Kernel Records, the owner of the sound recording rights, reported that the case had been filed in Florida. On June 7, 2011, the case of ''Kernel Records Oy v. Mosley'' ended with the court deciding that the tune was a US work as it had been first published on the Internet and that Kernel Records had failed to register for copyright in the United States. This reversed the decision of Moberg v. 33T LLC, which decided that a photograph published online in Germany was not a US work.
The copyright dispute was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
Similar cases
Earlier examples of unauthorized commercial use of SID music have been brought up by sources covering the Timbaland plagiarism controversy.
An often-mentioned example is Zombie Nation's 1999 hit ''Kernkraft 400
"Kernkraft 400" (English: Nuclear Energy 400) is a song performed by German techno artist Zombie Nation and the first single from their album ''Leichenschmaus''. Released in 1999, it peaked at number 22 in Germany in February 2000 while becoming ...
'', which was a remake of David Whittaker's song for the 1984 Commodore 64 game ''Lazy Jones
''Lazy Jones'' is a platform game for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX and Tatung Einstein. It was written by David Whittaker and released by Terminal Software in 1984. The Spectrum version was ported by Simon Cobb.
''Lazy Jones'' is a col ...
''. Legal action is pending. Another example is the Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
hit ''You've Got My Love'', for which the artist Bas "Bastian" Bron sampled the drums from Jeroen Tel
Jeroen Godfried Tel (born 19 May 1972), also known as WAVE, is a Dutch composer. He is best known for numerous computer game tunes he wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s for the Commodore 64. His most popular compositions appear in the following ...
's and Reyn Ouwehand's song made for the Rubicon game. Both of the cases were won by the original authors in court.
The Fitts for Fight case also involved copied chipmusic.
In April 2008, a similar case was revealed about self-proclaimed "chiptune maestro" Laromlab, who released his self-titled album on Mushpot Records; shortly after it was discovered that the entire album is in fact the work of a chiptune collective called the YM Rockerz. Mushpot responded by dropping Laromlab immediately from the label, and Laromlab himself has issued an apology, stating the "project was a hoax, a complete fallacy".
Media coverage
The beginnings of the controversy
The earliest Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
posts suggesting that "Do It" was based on "Acidjazzed Evening" date back to July 2006, and according to the Finnish news portal eDome, "Suni and other demoscene hobbyists" already knew about it at this time.
Mainstream coverage
One of the first large media to react to the on-line controversy was the Finnish Broadcasting Company
Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...
, which published a news item on the topic on January 14, 2007.
The electronic music magazine Side-Line put a complete news round-up up on its website. Finnish tabloids Ilta-Sanomat, Iltalehti, and newspapers ITviikko, and DigiToday also published articles about the suspected plagiarism on January 15, 2007.
On January 16, Finnish news portal eDome published an article about the case saying in the English summary that:
The article also covered similar cases from the past and notified that both the competition and the prize ceremony "were witnessed by the 4000-5000 people at the event. The competition and the ceremony were also shown in Helsinki area cable TV". The same day, the news reached Norwegian media, including Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and Dagbladet
''Dagbladet'' (lit.: ''The Daily Magazine'') is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally ''Dagbladet'' is considered the main liberal newspa ...
, both of which interviewed Gallefoss.
On January 17, the case was reported on briefly by the ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' website, ''XXL Magazine
''XXL'' is an American hip hop magazine, published by Townsquare Media, founded in 1997.
History
In August 1997, Harris Publications released the first issue of ''XXL''. It featured rappers Jay-Z and Master P on a double cover. In December 20 ...
'',[ at the ]Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
and the popular German IT news portal Heise online
Heise (officially ''Heise Gruppe'', formerly ''Verlag Heinz Heise'') is a Germany, German media conglomerate headquartered in Hanover, Lower Saxony. It was founded in 1949 by and is still family-owned. Its core business is directory media as we ...
. Heise's story suggests that Timbaland downloaded Gallefoss's SID arrangement from the High Voltage SID Collection.
On January 18, ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' put the controversy as top news of the day with a more detailed article.[()] Later that day the ''San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'' covered the story on their blog.
On January 22, MTV took notice of the issue with a longer article and video news. It is not clear if this video news was actually broadcast or merely posted online. MTV-owned sister station VH-1
VH1 (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network based in New York City and owned by Paramount Global. It was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, at the time a division of Warner Communi ...
also published the MTV news story. MTV had attempted to reach Timbaland's representatives via phone and e-mail, but they "had not responded at press time".
See also
*MOS Technology SID
The MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID (Sound Interface Device) is the built-in programmable sound generator chip of Commodore's CBM-II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Commodore MAX Machine home computers. It was one of the first sound chips of it ...
* Fitts for Fight
* Dow Jones & Co Inc v Gutnick
* Moberg v. 33T LLC
References
External links
Acidjazzed Evening
(MOD format, ZIP-compressed)
"Do It" music video on YouTube
Acid Jazz (C64 remix)
(SID format)
Collection of different sources about the issue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Timbaland
2007 in music
2007 controversies
Plagiarism
2007 scandals
Plagiarism controversies
Demoscene
Sampling controversies
Entertainment scandals
Copyright infringement